UK commercial property prices have already fallen by 25 per cent since last summer, but there is now clear evidence is that the UK property market has entered its so-called “double dip” phase as falling rents from struggling office and retail occupiers began to accentuate already dropping prices in the cyclical market downturn over the past year.

The IPD property index shows that the fall in property total returns accelerated in the third quarter of 2008 over the previous quarter, to -3.8 per cent, the worst month so far this downturn, with capital values down 4.3 per cent. While income returns rose 0.5 per cent, rental value growth fell -0.3 per cent, the sixth month of decline.